Catching the Catch-22 by Giving It Our Undivided Attention

By Patricia Lefave, Labeled, D.D.(P)

‘Schizophrenia’ (and sometimes some of the other labels for distressing life experience) is about first splitting some point of reality in two. (Bifurcation it’s called in chaos theory)
Then, a group of pseudo objective observers and judges switch the identities of the protagonists, usually urged on by the aggressive partner from the original pair, who is often putting on the long suffering, innocent act, and is operating with a hidden agenda of domination.

‘Schizophrenia’ is a word often used to define psychosis of any cause. It’s a catch all term used for control of the identified patient.

Psychiatry has turned traumatic events, problem relationships, abuse and group dysfunction into such a complex fantasy of ‘disease’ process, that psychiatrists, even those with sincere and honest intentions, can no longer even HEAR simple, straightforward statements of truth.

It is for this reason that we must relate to them the same way we would any programmed cult member. Of course, if any of them actually read this, they will scoff at the very idea that they ARE cult members. Then again, have you ever met a cult member who knew? You know what psychiatrists themselves like to say, “If you were really crazy, you wouldn’t know it.''

Once the identified patient first realizes he is talking to a well programmed automaton, just like he is when he is talking to any other dysfunctional group member, the fear of the situation he is takes over and the fight or flight response kicks in. He will then discover, to his further horror, that he is not ‘allowed’ to fight back, even verbally, and that he can’t escape a system that has all escape routes firmly blocked. Even his emotional reactions to his real situation (fear, anger, frustration, resentment, despair etc.) have been invalidated in advance by his being psychiatrized. (Defined as ‘symptoms’ which prove psychiatry ‘right’ to do what it does.)

The opposite of infinite power (as my own personal protagonist could tell you) is infinite powerlessness. That is what it FEELS like to be proclaimed to be inherently defective for telling your own truth which virtually no one will ever accept as reality.

It is like being alone in a void, alone in space, and feeling very small and totally helpless. That is why we experience such imageries in psychosis. It is like total, universal isolation. It is a feeling of utter desolation. It is like being rendered totally invisible as a human being, like being dead while your body keeps right on living in the horror of your new ‘reality’ as it is now defined FOR you by everyone else.

This is why the psychiatrized fight; for their lives, their minds and their own identities as individuals, or, after a time, give up and accept our fate, or give in to it and become what we are told we must be, or, occasionally, go on the offensive and attack our abusers and their blind and deaf supporters, or commit suicide as the only way out from under the psychic and/or drugging oppression.

You don’t want to hear that. You want us to put your good intentions first. I’m sorry we just can’t do that any more. You need to hear us, REALLY hear us not ‘interpret’ what you hear to meet your own needs.

It is not a ‘disease’ that makes us do these things. It is very often our righteously indignant, continually defensive, arrogant, controlling, dominating and ‘superior’ fellow human beings who cause and maintain their belief in a ‘disease’ that never was. This is a group ‘sickness’ people; a societal ‘sickness.’ It is the denial of this fundamental error in judgment that has kept it going, for nothing can ever make sense as long as you hold on to a faulty premise.

Talking to psychiatrists is like talking to the wall. They cannot hear what we are saying because they have been thoroughly trained to hear it as meaning something else. There is no real communication going on with most of them. They have become an extension of the dysfunctional ‘game’ as it is played with any other group, like in family, workplace or schools etc.

We all take out into the world the pattern of thinking and behavior we first learned in the family. We continue to use whatever we fail to question, whether it is good for us or not. If we really LOOK at the world and really pay attention to the results of what we do, we will see ‘the truth IS already out there.' Getting people to face it though is proving to be a monumental task.

We will never resolve this by trying to ‘reason’ with those who cannot hear, by trying to get them to think, or by trying to get them to just leave us alone, if they refuse the first two attempted solutions. They won’t think outside the box, they can no longer hear legitimate debate, and they are certain that controlling everyone else is the right thing to do.

As someone commented on my post, ‘Psychiatrists: You Taught Me How to Treat You’, if they hear complaints from us as victims,

“They will tell you this is all your own paranoia. Once a victim always a victim till you take your own turn at aggressor….”

Most of us don’t want to do that. In fact, it is often the fact that the aggressors in our lives KNOW we won’t do that, which causes them to target us for their abuse. We seem like easy targets to them. That is how they think. So we spend enormous amounts of time trying to ‘get through’ to our co-dependent ‘other’ and then trying to ‘get through’ to psychiatrists who remain psychologically deaf to everything we say.
If we are going to stop the dance of destruction and break the cycle, we are going to have to refuse to do the co-dependent Two Step. That means we are going to have to turn away from ‘getting through’ to people who can’t, or won’t, hear us, and just go public EVERYWHERE.

Talk openly about every detail of your ‘crazy’ experience with crazy doctors, in crazy workplaces, crazy families and do it calmly in groups, in every public place you can think of. Expect to be fought on this. The world at large does not like change, or to accept responsibility as individuals, as long as the scapegoat route is still available. It is not going to be easy on us for awhile. But don’t give up. This is how the poor and oppressed organize themselves, without corporations to sponsor us, and often without any physical contact at all. We just do it where we live. We create revolution over a cup of coffee at Tim Horton’s or Starbucks or just plain old MacDonald’s.

Remember though, when you are talking publicly, don’t be at all vague or metaphorical for it will likely be ‘interpreted’ as ‘madness.’ Instead, state every nitty gritty little detail of every conversation with the dysfunctional, and every meeting with the psychiatrist who is checking to see if you’re still ‘sane’ today.
(I used to think of my own post hospitalization checks as my “Say, I was just wondering how nuts you are today?” phone calls.)
When you give each other all the details, you must then assess it all with each other, and don’t forget to add some humor just to ‘seek attention’ to what you are talking about. In other words, go with the flow and start ‘seeking the fame and attention’ they have always been accusing us of wanting. You can never explain too much or give too much detail when you are talking in the vicinity of idiots with high I.Q.’s. It is not the complex that they don’t understand (in their own grandiose opinions) it is the perfectly obvious. THAT is what mystifies them. Like any cult member, there is already an alternate meaning to all we say preprogrammed into their minds, so, we have to first state the alternate meaning and THEN point out the obvious, like this:

Mental health professional: “He says his father is a liar.”

Interpretation of psychiatry: The key word in the above statement for psychiatrists is ‘says.’ Since fathers, as abstract, absolute entities don’t lie, the son MUST be lying about the fathers lying. Therefore, ‘claiming’ his father lies, must be a bid for attention. (See what I mean?)

Reality: His father is a liar. Period. There is no ‘hidden’ meaning in that simple statement. (Get the idea? It’s like talking to idiots who aren’t actually from this planet.)

I know. It sounds ridiculous. However, I really believe that we are all going to have to participate on this extremely simple, absurd level if we are ever going to get 'the help’ (the mental illness professionals) to wake up to reality.

Get together and talk, everywhere, and if you have some success or see some change as a result of it, even if in small ways at first, tell us about it. We create a ripple effect at a grass roots level, like a chain reaction wave at a sporting event. This though will be a chain reaction of freedom, will being and hope instead of oppression, despair and hopelessness. Tell us about your personal experience everywhere you are connected. You can also post on my guest blog, “Muzzles Off: Breaking Psychiatric Silence, which is listed on the right side under links, on the home page of this blog.

Don’t give up. We WILL get out of the circular arguments of psychiatry by joining together and stepping outside it with our unified collective spirit. You might say it is the ‘silk purse’ we are making out of the ‘sow’s ear’ we were forced to accept as an unwanted ‘gift.’

Sometimes, if we do it right, being one of many Voices can be a very good and beneficial thing for all of us, both as individuals and as a whole group.